


Agony

by mrhiddles



Category: Thor (Comics), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Dreams, M/M, and significant lack of beverage and cigarettes, brofeels at 2:30am, it's that after sex coffee and cigarette break you never wanted, only with knives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-01
Updated: 2013-02-01
Packaged: 2017-11-27 19:05:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/665402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrhiddles/pseuds/mrhiddles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yes, Loki liked poetry. He liked to speak words that did not rhyme.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Agony

Thor knew Loki liked poetry. He’d noticed it when they were younger, having been forced through private lessons together. Loki had learned elvish before he had, but he’d been the one to remember every major battle and warrior who’d won or lost those battles in Asgardian history. A victory Loki would never acknowledge.

He knew Loki liked poetry because Loki killed poetically. Every movement, every swipe of his knives, every narrowing of eyes and baring of teeth was calculated and determined and knowing in a way that Thor had trouble catching his breath sometimes when they fought. Blood spotted the pavement between them, and Thor recognized the poetry in the way Loki left as many in his wake as Thor had during war. Something many conveniently forgot when speaking of his brother.

Thor had never been good at poetry, or words in general. He could anger, he could intimidate, and scare, he could manipulate, he could gentle and assure—but he could never weave words as Loki did. It wasn’t in him. Perhaps it had been something he’d never had, or something even that had been lent to his brother in their youth, left to have for the rest of their days.

“Thor.”

No. Loki was his own, for Loki was Loki. The gift of words was his own, just as thunder was Thor’s.

“You stare often these days. What troubles you?”

Loki enjoyed the poems that did not rhyme. They were better twisted, like his clever knives.

They were lying, stretched out beside each other, Loki’s thigh barely touching his in the stale air of the room they were in. Battle-weary and scratched and bitten, they bore the marks of battle and of passion and Thor found he quite liked the mix.

“I am thinking.”

Loki hummed, blowing lightly on the small twirl of flame he catered busy fingers to. Thor watched the light play against Loki’s face, calm and wiped clean of any ill intent.

“And what are you thinking of, brother?”

Thor’s lips pulled into a tired smile. He knew it was a false familiarity. “Midgard. The other realms. Do you remember the God Butcher?”

Loki’s eyes dimmed, focusing on the past. He nodded, but barely.

“Evil times.”

“Even for you, Loki?”

Loki slid his eyes to Thor’s, but there was no humor there. Still, he smirked. A dark and terrible thing.

“Even for me, Thor.”

Thor’s tired smile dropped, but he didn’t look away.

“I have tried to understand it. So many times. The darkness in this world.”

“All worlds have darkness, Thor. That is a silly notion to so single it out as you would have it.”

Thor huffed, shifting one leg. “I am well aware of the darkness in other realms. I merely think on it. Perhaps more even than you do.”

Loki snorted, unimpressed. “You should stop talking.”

“Why?” Thor asked.

Loki snuffed the spark dancing between his fingers and raised that hand to brush through the ends of Thor’s hair at his shoulder. Thor restrained himself from leaning into it.

“Because it is not your talent. I would see that mouth put to other uses.” But the green of his eyes was dark and tired and bored and the hand playing at the ends of his hair was snatched back to his side. “Because maybe I hate your voice.”

“Loki,” Thor pleaded.

Loki curled his hands, slowly curved his arms to sway in the way that would have the edge of one of his blades show clear and smooth in his palm, ready to be clutched and thrown. And soon enough Thor saw the gleam of steel and silvered hilt, accompanied by the dead way Loki laid his eyes upon it.

Long fingers curled slowly about the hilt, weighing it, testing the strength of it, and Thor had the mad thought that he would stab his own stomach. But he did not, he only held it and stared.

“Loki…”

“I once dreamed I caved your head in against a cement wall. I was covered in your blood and mine. We had fought until the sky went blank and the court of every hall broke under the weight of an empty crown. You died.”

Yes, Loki liked poetry. He liked to speak words that did not rhyme.

“Another time, I dreamt you rescued me as a child. That I had been tossed away in the snow and the ice and you showed up.” A smile quivered, barely there. “You carried an axe, that hammer missing from your hip like the proud thing it is.”

The knife raised, and Loki still held it as if weighing it. His jaw jutted forth, and he looked more sad than contemplative now.

“Another time, I saw you die by another’s hands and felt shame that I could not end my own brother myself.”

His heart thundered in his chest, and his eyes ached.

“And do you know what every dream of mine has had in common?”

Thor blinked when Loki looked over to him, easily and innocently. Like he was honestly asking him and not setting him up for a blind death.

“Your voice, in agony.”

Loki held the knife away from him, and Thor took it, surprised at being offered the thing. Loki’s eyes were wild.

“You scream in my dreams, Thor. That is why you should not speak of evil things.”

**Author's Note:**

> It's one of those days, so this happened. Also expect Mass Effect fics soon?


End file.
